Various designs of head harnesses have been utilized in the prior art for maintaining a respirator mask on a wearer's face. A conventional respirator mask construction includes a rigid facepiece and a flexible face seal supported by the facepiece. A rigid facepiece may include a rigid lens, a rigid shell, or both. The desirability of having a head harness that can be placed over the wearer's head without becoming entangled with the wearer's hair is recognized in the art. Of course, it is also considered desirable to have a face mask that can be worn without undue discomfort.
A commonly used head harness for respirator masks is a multi-layered pad of textile fabric material that seats on the back of a wearer's head and has several adjustable elastomer or elastic straps projecting from the pad to the perimeter of the respirator mask. Such a head harness typically may include two similarly shaped layers of fabric sewn together about their peripheries to form a pad and fastening straps having first ends disposed between the two fabric layers and sewn in place, the straps extending outwardly from the pad for the purpose of securing a respirator mask to the face of a wearer. Although this head harness construction is not complex, it requires that the fastening straps be sewn to the pad. It would be desirable from an economic standpoint to eliminate the necessity for sewing the fastening straps to the pad.